A Systematic Review of Clinical Trials in Uveitis: Lessons Learned

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Clinical trials in uveitis have led to the expansion of therapeutic options for the management of non-infectious uveitis. The purpose of this systematic review is to investigate why some clinical trials have yielded successful results and regulatory approval of new therapies, and some have not.

Methods

A systematic literature search of the Pubmed/MEDLINE database and clinicaltrials.gov was performed from 2006 to 2021, according to the PRISMA guidelines. Phase III clinical trials of systemic and local therapies in adults with non-infectious intermediate, posterior, and panuveitis were included.

Results

A total of 79 clinical trials were collected from ClinicalTrials.gov and PubMed/MEDLINE database search. Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 14 clinical trials were included.

Conclusion

This review summarizes the study design, outcome measures, and results of recent phase III trials in non-infectious uveitis, in the interest of understanding limitations and rethinking new methods of defining endpoints in clinical trial design.

KEYWORDS:

• clinical trials
• phase 3
• outcome measures
• intermediate uveitis
• posterior uveitis
• panuveitis
• non-infectious
• treatment

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Ms. Margaret Chervinko, MFA, MLIS, for her assistance in literature searches for this review.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09286586.2022.2131837

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Eye Institute [EY021475,P30 EY001792, Center for Clinical and Translational Science, University of Illinois at Chicago which is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health, through Grant Award Number UL1TR002003, and unrestricted departmental funding from Researchto Prevent Blindness.